Recloseable zippers are used widely in the food packaging industry for providing packages that can be repeatedly opened and closed. These zippers typically provide two locking members: a male locking member and a female locking member. The locking members are designed to interlock under pressure and to disengage when the male and female members are pulled apart. To facilitate the alignment of the male and female locking members during reclosure, a post can also be provided.
In some applications, the zippers are formed integrally with the package (bag), while in other applications, the zippers are formed separately and are subsequently sealed to the package material. When the zipper is not formed integrally with the package, the zipper comprises a male profile and a female profile. The male locking member of the zipper is provided by the male profile and the female locking member of the zipper is provided by the female profile. In addition, the male and female profiles can each provide fusible ribs which can be used to fuse the zipper to the bag material.
In the bag manufacturing process, a continuous zipper wound about a spool is unwound from the spool and brought together with bag material. The supplied zipper and the bag material are then thermally fused together. In this manufacturing process, as the zipper from the spool runs out, the end of the zipper from the spool must be spliced to the end of a continuous zipper wound about a second spool so that the manufacturing process can continue without interruption.
One current method of splicing two zippers together involves manually taping the end of the zipper on one spool to the beginning of the zipper on the second spool. There are several disadvantages to using tape to splice zippers together. The tape splicing operation generates a large amount of scrap because the tape splice is fairly large in size and the zipper must be marked before and after the splice. Numerous bags must be thrown out when tape is used to splice the zippers together. Furthermore, because tape is used to splice the zippers together, the bags that are thrown out are non-recyclable. In addition, the manual tape splicing operation is time-consuming and, as a result, it decreases the efficiency and productivity of the bag manufacturing process. Thus, there is a need for a method of splicing two zippers together without the use of tape.